Page 37 of Top Shelf
Fuck. I should have brought my crochet bag. I did my best not to feel self-conscious about my hobbies, but I tended to get odd looks in public, so I avoided taking it anywhere except my room. And occasionally to class if most of the students weren’t judgy assholes.
I felt all squirmy on the inside, and I wanted to hop down and start pacing, but I couldn’t do that either. I wasn’t full weight-bearing on my leg, which was really fucking with my stimming.
I tapped my fingers instead, then rocked a little, and hummed in the back of my throat.
For a moment, I swore I could feel the minutes ticking by like it was a heartbeat.
Tap tap tap!
I jolted, and it took me a second to realize someone was knocking. “Come in!” Was I supposed to say come in? Oh god, was I supposed to get undressed? She hadn’t said anything. I was still in the chair, damn it.
I hopped up and shifted to the table, sliding my ass onto the tissue paper just as the knob turned. And then my entire world flipped upside down.
For a second, I thought maybe I was hallucinating. I’d dreamed of Quinn so often, sometimes I woke up thinking he was in bed beside me. It took me too long to orient to the fact that I was not only in a strange bed, but that I was alone.
I didn’t expect one night with a man I barely knew to affect me that way, but apparently, my brain decided to latch on to him the way it did my hyperfixation meals or my special interests.
I blinked, and yeah. He was still there.
Great. What the fuck did I say now?”
“Mr. Redding. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I almost choked on my own tongue. “You’ve met me. You had fingers in my ass.”
He paled, then fumbled to close the door quickly without slamming it. “That’s…you can’t say that here.”
I stared at him. “But it’s true. You have. I know I’ve taken a lot of painkillers for this, but I did not imagine what we did. We had sex.”
He swallowed heavily, then rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, almost like he was offering up a prayer. After a beat, he dropped his chin and nodded. “Yes. We did. But you’re now my patient, and I am your physical therapist.”
“That doesn’t seem ethical,” I admitted. Fuck, why was I like this? All I wanted was to leap into his arms and make him kiss me until all this pain felt easier to manage. And I was bitching at him about ethics?
“We’re not currently in a relationship. There’s nothing currently unethical about it. However, if you feel uncomfortable, I’m more than happy to recommend another facility?—”
“I want you to help me,” I told him.
His jaw snapped shut so hard I heard his teeth click. He breathed through his nose—a slow in and out. Then he nodded and hooked the rolling stool with his foot and sat, scooting toward the exam table. It was weird to have him so far below me.
“I’m more than happy to help you so long as it won’t make you uncomfortable. In spite of our…past”—it was almost like he was choking on the word—“we can be professional about this.”
That wasn’t a complicated idea, so I nodded. “Okay. We won’t talk about dicks or sex or anything.”
He choked on a cough, then cleared his throat and nodded. The tips of his ears were red. Was I embarrassing him?
“I should not talk about your penis, right?”
“That might be for the best,” he said. His voice was a gravelly rumble. “Now…” He looked down at the tablet he was holding, then back up at me. “A car accident?”
“I was almost hit by the trolley,” I told him.
“Oh my god.”
“I stumbled back, but there was a car going too fast, and it couldn’t stop in time. It hit me. I don’t remember much. I woke up in the hospital, and my mom was there.”
He blinked rapidly. “Ferris, I am so sorry. You must have been terrified.”
“It was mostly the pain,” I admitted. “It hurt a lot. And the medication made my skin really itchy. And I’ve never liked the idea of going under anesthesia.”
